Gold said:
Look at the words you wrote "giving away money" - that's the problem. You're not "feeling y'all", you're part of the problem. The example provides no specifics. If you think you can get the same skills for $15,000 less, you obviously have no respect for the skills that it takes to be a capable journalist.
So you're telling me that if you have three finalists for a job and one demands $15,000 more than the other, that person must be a better choice? I know people that make $40,000 and don't deserve welfare. I know people who make $22,000 and should be at least doubling that, even within the context of what journalists typically make. I also know that when you get to the finalist stage of a job filling process, unless you have a breakout awesome person in the mix, you're looking at people who all can do the job well, and any differences in ability to do it are likely to be small to the point of non-noticible.
So yes, you can and usually DO have three finalists that are equally able to do a job, whatever that job is. If Option A is worth the extra $15,000, then by all means pay that person the extra $15,000. If all three can do the job equally well and two people are willing to do the job for significantly less money, then what is your reasoning for spending money that you don't HAVE to? That IS giving away money, like paying $20 for a $12 case of Yuenglings because you want to experience solidarity with the mom-and-pop convenience store from which you're purchasing it. If the more expensive option is worth the money, then yes. Otherwise, again, what business is going to pay someone $40,000 for a job they're willing to do for $25,000?
You could find people to cover NFL beats for $25,000, but my guess is you are going to spend a lot more time editing them, that there is going to be a learning curve and if you are in a competitive situation your paper is going to get beat on a lot of stories, and that if you are lucky enough to find somebody to do the job for $25,000 and they are very good, they aren't going to be happy for very long. Using your logic, you should get rid of everybody making more than $50,000.
Jeez, way to triple jump to an incorrect conclusion there. Chances are that yes, an NFL beater willing to take $25,000 isn't going to be good, but not because he's making $25,000, but because he doesn't have the experience to make more. Obviously, someone with precious little experience probably is not on even keel with the writer who won't do it for more than $50,000. Therefore, the people who warrant more money through their experience and talent are going to get it. I don't know where you got the idea that everyone who makes more than $50,000 should be fired; seriously, I have no ****ing CLUE where that comes from.
However, let's say it is a paper with a good size circulation. Paying the higher salary would be likely to result in less turnover. Let me put it this way - a newspaper pays somebody $20,000 to cover a city council meeting. It would mean a publisher is sending out somebody to report on an important government agency, and the agency's lowest level clerical staff member makes more than the reporter. If you don't see a problem with that, I suggest you read Foster Winans's book about how he was making $28,000 and writing the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal. Granted that was in the 1980s, but that was a ridiculous salary for somebody writing that important a column. The result was predictable - somebody paid Winans to see what was going to be in the column and it became an insider trading scandal. That's the sort of thing that happens when pay does not equal responsibility.
The writer in the example you provided accepted the salary. We can say "well hell, it's not right that person get paid less than a clerical employee," and you're right, but this person took the job at that money. You pay the people what the market is willing to bear. This is not a newspaper-only concept. The clerical employee didn't get whatever they're making just from the government's lagresse -- they posted a job that had a salary or wage range, and whoever got the job got it for a figure somewhere in it. They're not in the business of paying money that they don't have to, and few people or companies are. I'm still waiting for someone to give me the justification of paying someone $15,000 more than another person without proving that they're worth $15,000 more. No industry does that.
The problem is simple and cold economics: Fewer jobs + more applicants = buyer's market. If you want to solve the problem, help start more papers that compete directly against monopoly papers, which are the overwhelming majority now. Or start a series of smallpox outbreaks at every major journalism program in America's colleges, or whatever it'll take to convince the next crop of would-be wage jockeys not to enter our already-Balkanized turf.